Gateshead & Snieders Litvish yeshivos, coming to Chabad #1- Rabbi Chaim Dalfin

Shalom RAB Lawrence I'm here today October 21st 2024 we're here to interview you about your life about your history your relationship with the re with kabad family and my understanding is you're from England originally and today you live in Toronto that's correct so please speak as loud as you can okay and why don't you begin with some early family history of your self and your family uh first of all it's a pleasure to be here thank you I was born in England a place called Leeds many people have heard of Manchester but not Leeds but Leeds had a good soccer team until until I left okay I went to high school in Leeds there were no you Shivers at that time El leads I went to high school yes and then when I was approximately 18 years of age they started a Yesa small Yeshiva in leads and I went to that yiva for about two years when you say they who is the they there was a rabbi gold Rabbi sappa two rabbis in leads they started yiva of the they were they were lisher okay Rabbi gold was a St m he was well known okay sa was he was a big Tom and we stayed in touch of course for many years after that so I for two years I went there and then we only had approximately five bam in the yiva so the future there was not promising to stay in the yiva and therefore I decided to go to Gates head how did I get to Gates head so during the summer I went there sort of as a vacation and I learned with one of the Bing so he saw that I knew something I could learn and in those days it was very difficult to get into Gates head because they really have no room but coming from leads Leeds was a very irreligious City just to give you an example people used to stop me on the um the bus and say excuse me you have your yam on and I would say I know and they would think I was crazy so getting in to Gat set from leads was easier because there really wasn't a lot in leads from a religious perspective so I applied to Gates head I got into Gates head right how far is gat set from leads it's about 88 miles approximately 88 miles okay and by the way leads to London is 188 miles okay and to Manchester is 40 miles now you know where it is so I started in a um a sheer in Gates head they had six different classes levels because I had already been in leadership for two years I started basically in the third level and then from there I went up to the next one etc etc they learned a lot of mus was a musiva nice people I mean they they did dedicate themselves to learning but it was not aidic environment so I had no contact with laich uh anything of Lich there was basically very negative well did you even know about Lich at the time no I didn't know about Lich but later on when I look back uh I see how negative it was I never even saw a Al there no situ for him um but as I said they were dedicated to learning right now one second your your parents and grandparents came from what type of they were l what were they no they they were liter background they came from dinin I think my I never saw my from my mother's parents I really never saw them they passed to unfortunately but I think my grandfather was a I think in dvinsk and from My Father's Side they were came to England in the late 1800s uh fortunately um my grandfather passed away when I was quite young so I really didn't know them very well and your parents themselves were traditional Jews um not really not really the thing is that I always had a feeling towards yish I was very careful was to TI is for example and later on I insisted that I get to fill in uh it was just there the feeling the feeling was there okay continue please now going back to Gates head yeah so in Gates head there was um a couple of maybe a couple of stories that illustrate um the way they looked at things looked at Torah for example um there was a a b there I won't mention his name I don't know where he is now he was a um one of the best B in Yeshiva and he had a certain shock he learned he was a big massm I remember once he was learning a tus and there's a word he didn't understand he took a pencil crossed it out and said to Cipher it's a mistake another another story that I remember remember again a good who could learn well and he was giving a pill pull and he said rash you actually heard him say those words I was I was there when he was given a Phil and I say like this now one problem inate said because of course they and this applies to many places that don't was PR feeling of self G G and because of that there was a division between the LA and the higher Bim those in the first three four shim and those in the low what they had is they did have Bim in the fourth she that helped all the Bim I was one of those bakim and they considered me a good Bak because I would answer all any question from anybody but you really couldn't approach an older baka it was very difficult to do that and to such an extent that the mashk actually told off the old and top toim uh not to be so egotistical and to have more of a relationship with the young so that that was that that came over very strong MH who was the Russa at the time it was rapan gurovich shom he was the the and and uh they had various ways of daving not necessarily kidish ways of ding you mean they were like shaking a lot and making gestures facial gestures hand gestures yeah you know the the regular shtick but it was a lot of shtick but I didn't understand in those days the problems right also also what I saw as well without mentioning names I saw that during daving that there laan would be learning the would be learning it didn't hit me at that time but afterwards I saw that that it was not you mean Jo repetition repetition from right um but again I was ignorant of any other D so I just observed and and you were inv you you adapted to it I adapted to it no I had a good shle by the way I had very strong stomach muscles because and when it came to larich later on L is the first thing I was told to do is stop shling cut it out because otherwise they would throw towels at me now what what actually changed there was that there was a Yesa in London called Schneider's Yeshiva the F held Rabbi schneid in very high esteem he saved a lot of Bing from Morocco F Bing yes yes he had passed away and there was a lot of makas in Thea schneiders divisions his yeah his Rabbi Schneider's son was very but he had been sick for a long time so they didn't consider him as being Riva sot alpian of the lapans he kind of took over but a lot of B left what now what year are you talking about you this is approximately 19 early 1960s so when did you begin at uh Gates head at Gat head at Gat head I probably began um 50 probably 59 58 or 59 58 59 and at Schneider Isa in early 60s in the early 60 so you were engag set for like two years or so well I was engag said for approximately let's say three or four years I went to ER Israel for six months came back where' you go you that was in B Bar in in in in Chen visionit um Hill you said it was named Hill the the rash the mash was called Hill vitkin he wrote a famous mus saer and I always remember that he had false teeth and you know the the way of the um where he came the Yesa NAD Yesa they used to they used to mle themselves Gates said it was a NAD Yesa uh the mashia there I forget his name now he was was very El person was NAD so this Yeshiva in Isel was n Yesa Hill vikin he used to come and remember take off his hat and stick it through the railings and then he had false teeth and he used to keep coming out and he used to put them back again so you're saying this was done spe specially to to like this was the D this this was the D tole to mle to to like humiliate so that this would create uh humility which later on we realized that this isn't humility right and I remember one Mes shabas in those days in her Israel the um there was no electricity in the on shabas it got dark eventually so shabas afternoon this vikin would give a mus as he got dark all the B would leave can you imagine Bim leaving when the re was talking all the Bim left and then straight after shabas when they could put the lights on everybody came back H yeah um so you you left um uh uh dat said you went to Thea why did you only stay six months because originally I only went there to meet my's parents who were living in AR Israel they were leaving AR Israel and so we my said listen why don't you come with me meet my parents we'll stay a little bit then we'll come back cuz my intention was to come back to Gates head uhhuh but 6 months is is not just a little time right so we so we learned we didn't waste our time we learned into the Yesa and they gave us a letter rash Shiva gave us a letter saying that we were a good baring when we came back I think that good letter was the downfall of Gat said by the way what happened what do you mean so let me explain so in Thea iniva um this laserion came to Gat to get some good B we had this letter from hertis saying we good Bim so the first thing said ah we'll send these Bim down to schneiders to help six months that's all that we stayed a year and a half as I was there again I saw the Derk and I wasn't happy with the DK it was a lot of it wasn't the kind of thing that draw you drew out any warmth um Etc I Remember by the way the the first Sunday I was there in schn Shiva so so the rash Shiva gave a pill I was tired so I wasn't listening I was very tired after the pill pool he called me into his office and he says repeat it I said I wasn't listening he never asked me anymore uh that's so so let me understand so in other words even though engage said you felt uh comfortable you didn't have any feelings ill feelings about your experience in Gat it at that time at that time right right but when you went to Schneider's you felt uncomfortable because there was infighting is that what I'm hearing amongst the staff some infighting and there was some things that happened with B ex which I'm not going now and I wasn't happy with it right and they knew that they knew that okay and now I did know some laich B in London where was and remember one Mo shabas I went to was invited to a malava Mala can you think of anything worse than a malava Mal CH wasn't the movies so we went I think three three or four of us went to malava Mal it was like a bomb dropped the Russ Yesa called us over no learning of Tanya in the Yeshiva after that I wasn't in t then no but was no of of of T Etc and then that's when I decideded you know what I'm going to to um to New York I'm going to to laich nobody spoke to me about going to Lich it's just something that was inside of me they had a feeling I told you to write to the rebba if I should go I didn't get an answer but I had a feeling to go but one second yes how did you have that feeling if you didn't have did you have any contact with leiters what did you know about kabad laish at the time it was just some feeling that overcame you it was some feeling yeah wow I was automatically I felt connected some some s from that one mava Mala after the mava Mala I I knew a few laes but again nobody spoke to me about LA right nobody convinced me I just knew I I had to go right I had to go and then the firewor one one thing at this did you see any know was still there or others did anyone like you were very impressed with them you said oh this is a real fiveish rogal F there was also somebody else who actually became part of my Mish [Music] um no no um he is I forget his name anyway okay um but I was impressed I was impressed but again nobody sat down and spoke about going to L okay the Riva took me to his house took me to his house he spoke to me for an hour an hour about the evils of going to laage and how when you learn cabal you make a mistake it's a big problem I mean they didn't I you know a clue what well this it was cabala cabala no so I told him straight off I said I don't like the dere that I see here give me a different D and he kept quiet kept quiet the end was I did go to laich I went into 770 to learn and this backtrack I have a brother twin brother he was in England and he wasn't really going anywhere I wanted him to come to laich as well he was a laich at the time um my parents really couldn't afford to send send him to La was expensive and I met a b in um in laich whose grandfather was was was very uh he was well off he had money and he bought a ticket K far by the way was his name his grandfather bought a tiet ticket to come to New York got sick and he said to me if you want I'll give you the ticket for your brother so my brother came over and he also came into 77 he came into into La barage